Tuesday, 21 December 2010

Another week of anti-establishment and anti-imperialist apologists for political repression, political violence, and alleged sexual violence, and whatever else it takes to stick it to the man . . .

On Friday The Guardian published sexual assault allegations against Julan Assange, central to which were assertions that he deliberately and repeatedly had unprotected sex with women contrary to their wishes. Bizarrely self-described feminist Naomi Wolf read this and saw only consent, as she says in this TV debate with Jaclyn Friedman. Wolf had earlier ridiculed the two women alleging assault.

Then there’s Michael Moore who described the allegations as “lie and smear” when interviewed by Keith Olbermann on MSNBC’s Countdown. And Mr Olbermann has turned out to be quite a spectacle himself, retweeting a link from Assange supporter Bianca Jagger to a piece written by Holocaust denier Israel Shamir naming both women in the case and alleging a link between one of the women and the CIA. Finding himself criticised as a result, Olbermann reacted in a rather extreme manner and has since kept on digging.

What else? Michael Moore found he didn’t like it much when his own name turned up in a WikiLeaked cable on Cuba, and protested that The Guardian had the story wrong. Terry Glavin tells just how wrong the story was, and putting it right gives no credit to Moore.